Godawara, India, April 25th.
Felow beech comer:
Missed the train to Bina becaze I knoked the block off a black polisman. They draged me down hear and the comish finned me fifteen dibs and then payed the fine and put me rite as far as Agra. I will pick you up ther on the 27th. yours,
Busted Head.
The twenty-seventh was past. The ex-pearl-fisher must have gone on, for I saw him no more.
The next afternoon I went to see the wonderful Taj Mahal, a great white marble building erected by a king as the burial-place of his wife. Then I took the night train to Delhi. In that city I found almost an Arab world. I began to fancy that I was back in Damascus, the stores and people were so much like those of “Shaam.” The calls to prayer, the fez headdress, the lean-faced Bedouins with their trains of camels, even the stray dogs, reminded me that there was a time when the followers of Mohammed ruled a large part of India. But there were also many Arab eating-shops where the keepers were not afraid to let me pause to choose my food from the steaming kettles that stood near the doorway.
It was these signs of a Western world, perhaps, that soon brought to my mind that my side trip “up country” had carried me a thousand miles out of my way. I awoke one morning with my mind made up to turn eastward once more. I spent that day perspiringly as chief ball-chaser for the Delhi Tennis Club, fagging three games for the district commissioner and as many more for his friends. They did not reward me at once, however, and at twilight I turned back penniless toward Delhi, four miles distant.
A lady of Delhi out for a drive in a bullock cart.
The stillness of the summer night was broken only by the murmuring hum of insects, or by the leaves moving softly in the gentle breeze. Now and then I heard the patter of native feet along the dusty roadway. Once I was startled by a loud chorus of men’s voices that burst out suddenly from the darkness in words of my own language; and a moment later a squad of English soldiers trooped by me, arm in arm, singing at the top of their lungs, “The Place Where the Punkah-wallah Died.” Plainly they were returning to their barracks after spending a merry afternoon on leave. They disappeared down the road, and I tramped on into the silence of the night.